Orland Park’s Plan Commission has unanimously endorsed planning and zoning changes for a proposed 22-unit condominium development northwest of 73rd Avenue and Wheeler Drive, clearing the way for elected officials’ review.
The advisory panel, in a 5-0 vote Tuesday, endorsed exterior design upgrades to the row house-style Residences of Southbridge, to be built directly north of Southbridge, a nondenominational church.
The changes by north suburban architect Paul Swanson include recessing front entryways by two feet, extending rear balconies across their respective garage doors and new siding material.
In December, plan commissioners balked at endorsing a request for special-use designation, rezoning and other issues necessary for Swanson’s project, insisting he make the exteriors of the four three-story buildings more visually appealing.
Commission Chairman Louis Stephens, speaking prior to the vote, said he particularly liked the introduction of cantilevering on the third-floor.
It helps break up the exterior appearance, “so it doesn’t look like a box anymore,” Stephens said.
During the meeting, senior planner Nictarios “Terry” Pittos responded to residents’ flooding concerns, using a projected image to show how engineering would direct stormwater into the 12-14 storm sewers on the development property, and then into municipal mains. A detention area would handle other potential flooding.
Resident Dennis Corrigan continued to press for proof water would not run off onto his property in the 7300 block of 155th Street.
Stephens told Corrigan, “They’re not going to create a water problem for you. They’re solving a water problem for you.”
Jeanne Gill of the 7300 block of 154th Street, said she was concerned the units would become rental apartments.
“Subsidized housing,” Gill said, “I think that’s one of our biggest fears.”
The $250,000 units are architecturally townhouses, but Swanson said they are legally condominiums.
“There is no intent to lease these,” he said. “They are all for sale.”
In other business, plan commissioners endorsed a request to reduce the number of parking spaces from 579 to 314 at a 166,000-square-foot former furniture store-warehouse east-southeast of Orland Square Mall.
Carson’s Furniture Gallery occupies a small portion of the building, which has been mostly vacant for the past 13 years.
Prior to the unanimous vote, Mitch Goltz of GW Properties told commissioners he anticipates $12 million in improvements to the interior from three new tenants: Charter Fitness, Sky Zone in-door trampoline park and Jak’s Warehouse, an indoor laser tag/go-kart operation.
“It would be impossible for this building to be redeveloped into anything other than a furniture warehouse to meet the parking requirements,” Goltz said.
At the meeting, Commissioner Steve Dzierwa, who died Jan. 19, was remembered. Dzierwa, 61, had been on the commission since 2003.
Stephens, speaking after the meeting, said Dzierwa, an operating engineer at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago since 1990, “added a great deal. He brought a lot to the committee.”
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Dzierwa’s passing was marked by a bouquet of mums brought in by colleague Nick Parisi.
Dennis Sullivan is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.